West Of Forever
by CornishGirl
Summary: S2. Six weeks after the demon-driven semi crashed into the Impala. Another wreck, and two equally wrecked brothers. Separated from Dean, concussed Sam is trying to make sense of the world . . . and not doing well.


_**West of Forever**_

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><p>Probably he had said it more than once. Through the fog in Sam's head, he continued to say it. "—he okay? My brother?"<p>

The voice was calm, quiet, female, with a warm huskiness he found appealing. "He should be."

"You sure?"

"I think so."

"- he's not always . . . not always honest. About pain. If it's not bad, he screams bloody murder. If it is, he's really, really quiet."

"Yeah, we see that with some."

"But he's not always a hard-ass. Well, not mostly. A lot, yeah." The explanation didn't seem to be going the way Sam intended. "I mean, he _is,_ but only when it matters."

"Yeah. Gotcha."

"Is he alive?"

"Yes."

"For sure?"

"Yes."

He thought about it. "Doctors lie."

Amusement threaded her tone. "I'm not a doctor. Just a paramedic."

"—he okay?"

"He should be."

"—Dad?"

There was a pause, and she didn't answer, and he was aware of movement around him, of sound that suggested a vehicle. Ambulance, maybe. She'd said _paramedic_.

"What about your dad?"

"Am I dead?"

"No. I promise. You're very much alive."

There was no wailing siren. "Am I dead?"

"No."

"Are you a reaper?"

"Am I . . . ? No. Whatever that is. Just a paramedic."

"—brother?"

"They loaded him into another ambulance. We may or may not be going to the same hospital."

That was not what he wanted to hear. "Dean -?"

"He's okay."

"—sure?"

She didn't answer at once. Then, "Listen, hey, we'll find out—"

And as he moved, he realized they'd strapped him down against the gurney. He struggled, but had no strength to fight it. Consciousness wavered. "I gotta . . . gotta know . . ."

"When they can, they'll let you know details at the hospital. I know it's hard, but it may take some time. There are multiple casualties."

Swallowing was very difficult. "Where's Dean?"

"He's okay. He's on his way to the hospital."

He dragged himself from the stupor of shock. Everything was abruptly clear, sharp, pronounced. The ambulance rattled. He was encased by steel. He lay upon a narrow gurney locked into the floorboards, and straps pinned him in place. A dark-haired, blue-eyed woman in a navy knit polo shirt bearing embroidery on the left breast pocket looked down upon him. She smiled. Had a nice smile.

"—my brother—"

The inflection in her tone never wavered. "He's okay."

"Are you _sure?_"

"Listen -"

"Because he _has_ to be."

"Then I'm sure he is."

It made no sense. It was routine. She said it to shut him up. And he protested. "No. No. You don't understand . . . he's my brother."

She smiled. "I have brothers, too."

He swallowed heavily. "What happened?"

"Dust storm. No visibility. It happens here sometimes. Multiple vehicle pile-up. They're saying 18, at the moment. Could have been worse."

He frowned. "Where are we?"

"You tell me. I'm not allowed to say."

It was baffling. "Not allowed - ?"

"Protocol prefers the patients identify their location. Name. Birthdate. You know."

He thought hard. "I-40. West of Albuquerque, New Mexico."

"Bingo."

He frowned. "Yahtzee."

"Yahtzee?"

"We don't say 'Bingo.' Too predictable, Dean said. Dean decided when we were kids that we should say 'Yahtzee.'"

"Okay. Yahtzee. Yes, we are west of Albuquerque."

"Flagstaff," he said.

"Flagstaff?"

"Arizona. Next to New Mexico."

She sounded amused. "Last time I looked, yes. Flag is about four hours west of here. Is that where you were going?"

The vehicle rocked. No siren. They didn't expect him to die imminently. "Am I actually here? In an ambulance?"

"You are actually here. So am I. I promise—we're about thirty minutes out from the hospital."

"Did we wreck?" She did something around his body, and he remembered he was strapped down. "Dean?"

"You're okay," she said. "I promise."

"Dean -?"

"Look, in this kind of thing we scramble like jets on a mission. No one knows who goes into what ambulance. We just triage, then transport."

He rocked on the gurney even as the ambulance swam against the interstate. "But I'm not going to die?"

She smiled. "No. I promise. You've got a broken leg that we know of, and a wicked concussion, but you're not going to die."

He frowned, trying to piece it out. "What happened?"

"I don't know for sure. But in these kinds of things, it's like dominoes. Car after car after car, with semis and RVs thrown in for emphasis. The accordion slams shut."

No airbags. The Impala pre-dated almost all safety features.

He'd been riding shotgun.

_Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole._

"Dean -?"

"Look, I don't remember which car you were pulled out of, but -"

"Impala. '67. Black."

"Ah," she said, as if it mattered. "That one, I remember. My dad had a '68."

She'd misunderstood. "No. '67."

"I gotcha."

"Dean - ?"

"I'm sure he's fine."

He summoned every ounce of strength he had. "Do you - or do you not—know how my brother is?"

She was silent a moment. "What I know is, they used the Jaws-of-Life to pry two guys out of a black land-yacht. I recognized it because my dad had a '68. I can't tell you anything more than that. We were pretty busy."

He felt detached, distant. "Pried?"

"Doors were torqued from the impact."

Sam sighed. "Dean'll be pissed. Loves that car."

"Much to love," she agreed.

"Did you give me something?"

"You mean drugs? No. That's all concussion."

"Can't you find out?"

"Find out what?"

"My brother."

"It doesn't work that way. We just triage onsite, load everyone up into whatever ambulance is handy, haul everyone in. We don't discusses patients over the radio unless it's with the hospital. I'm sure once you're there, someone will be able to track down your brother."

"A while back . . ." He grayed out, returned.

"A while back?" she prompted.

"—while back . . . a different wreck . . ."

"This isn't your first?"

"No. While back. Semi." He blinked his eyes hard to remain awake. "Me. Dad. Dean."

"A semi hit you?"

He stared up at the tunnel encasing him. Big, white, noisy. His body, strapped down, felt the roughness of the road. "Dean died."

The professionalism slipped. "What?"

"He died. But—they pulled him back.

She said nothing, just sat at his side.

"I saw it," he explained. "He was dead. They slammed him with juice in the hospital, brought him back. But—Dad died. Juice didn't help."

She was quiet for some time, as the ambulance rattled. Then she asked, "What's your brother's name?"

About that, he was silent. Thoughtful. He knew he wasn't normal. Concussion. It was always a challenge, dealing with hospitals. But he felt shaky, and sick, and nothing was real. He merely floated in the world.

"Dean what?" she asked.

Oh. Yeah. She knew that much. "'67 Chevy Impala."

"I'm not asking for the car's name. Though probably you have one. My dad did."

Sam smiled fatuously. "Baby."

"Okay. Baby. The car. Typical male. What's his name? Do you remember?"

Part of him knew she asked because she needed to gauge his concussion. Part of him hoped a little more was involved. So he didn't lie. "Winchester."

She disappeared, and Sam floated. Tried to ride the dips and joggles of the interstate. He thought it might be easier to just let go, to turn everything over to everyone else.

When she came back, she knuckled his breastbone. Hard. "No sleeping."

Wide-eyed with pain, he stared up at her.

"Sorry," she said. "No sleeping with a concussion, at least until the docs check you out. I broke the rules and may get dinged for it, but I did ask for info, pried a little out. Don't know much, but something's better than nothing." She smiled down at him. "Four cars up, another ambulance is hauling a guy named Dean Winchester. Real pain in the ass, I'm told. Broken wrist, probably popped a couple of ribs. Nothing major. No apparent concussion, so they sedated him just to shut him up. Seems all he'd do was yell about someone named Sammy."

Relief was overwhelming. Even as he smiled, he nearly went under.

The knuckle came down again. "No sleeping."

"—_crap_—that hurts!"

"Sorry. Pain response test, and keeps concussion cases awake. You stay with me, and no more knuckles."

"Dean?"

"He's okay," she told him. "I promise. Among our own kind, we're honest. No platitudes, no cliches, none of that . . . _stuff_ . . . you hear on TV."

'Our own kind,' she'd said. Sam pondered that. She wasn't a hunter. Did she mean as a paramedic? He couldn't know. He and Dean did their best to avoid all contact with medical personnel, though sometimes it was impossible. Like now. But maybe they did what they did, and it was different from most. Like what he and Dean did.

"He's okay?" he asked.

"He's okay."

"And the car?"

"I don't know about the car. I'm sorry."

"Dean'll want to know."

"What they usually do is haul all the wrecks to impound lots. They don't leave them by the side of the interstate."

"She's not a 'wreck.' Dean fixed her. After the . . . accident."

"The semi hit the Impala?"

He stirred, gave up movement. "My dad? He okay?"

"I don't know," she said steadily. "We don't know who goes where. They just load us up, and we transport."

He focused with every fiber of his body. "Dean?"

"Dean's fine. Was cussing out the world, I'm told, when no one could tell him how you were. Apparently he was explicit about what they might consider doing with their radio when they said they couldn't find out. Sideways _and_ inside out, I think he said."

He grinned. "That's Dean."

"Do you remember _your_ name?"

He stared up at her. "What?"

"Your name. Do you remember it?"

That much, he did. And told her. "Sam. Winchester. Sam Winchester."

"Okay. That jibes with what they told me about your brother. I mean, what he was yelling about." She nodded. "How about the date?"

He stared up at her even more intently. After a moment, he said, "I have absolutely no idea what day it is."

She cracked a smile. "Half the time, with the shifts I work, neither do I. That's why I've never understood why they ask people that. But I'm supposed to ask, so . . . what day do you _think_ it is?"

He considered it. "Maybe . . . Tuesday?"

"Tuesday it is. Do you remember where you are?"

"Right now? Here with you." Sam sighed. "Unless you're a ghost. Or spirit. Or demon. In which case I'm dead anyway, and it really doesn't matter where I am, or what day it is, or which entity you are."

She smiled. "Concussions are always so interesting."

His world was fraying again. "Dean-?"

"He's fine."

"Dad?"

Even as he gazed up at her, he saw her expression still. "I'm sorry, Sam. I don't know."

"Am I dying?"

"No, Sam. I promise."

"Dean died. And Dad."

"I'm sorry."

He tried to sort out the fractures in his mind. "The car . . . we were in the car . . . semi hit us . . . "

"Today?"

"No. Before."

"When was that, Sam?"

That much, he knew. It was certainty, unfogged by concussion. "Six weeks ago." And he flashed on Dean beating the hell out of the Impala - his baby! - with a tire iron. When?

She dragged in a breath, let it out. "I'm sorry, Sam. But I promise you—your brother's okay."

"I think . . . I think maybe . . . Dad made a deal. For Dean."

She moved at his side. "I'm checking your blood pressure, Sam. Nothing to be alarmed about, okay?"

"Dean?"

"Dean's fine. I promise."

"—I'm okay?"

"Broken leg, concussion. All will be fixed."

Dean's words, but somehow they applied. " . . . hell . . . that's nothing."

"Yup. Not much, as these things go." And then she caught a call on her radio, and he remembered who, and what, she was. She asked questions, answered questions, provided information. Then she let go of the radio and looked again at him. "You'll be fine, Sam. This isn't me just saying shit—" She broke off, and color stained her face. "Uhhh, sorry. Not supposed to be so . . . descriptive. But you bring out the honesty in me, kid."

He grinned up at her, sliding toward unconsciousness. "I appreciate your frankness."

"Uh-huh." She smiled faintly. "Really, you'll be fine. I know it's scary being hauled in by an ambulance, but—"

"Helicopter," he supplied.

"What?"

"Helicopter. They hauled us out by chopper. I was okay, but Dad, and Dean . . . " He shivered suddenly, almost convulsively. "They wouldn't tell me how they were."

"Sam." She squatted very close to him, bracing against the ambulance's movement, and he found one hand gripped in both of hers. "Listen to me . . . your brother is okay. He's got a broken wrist, mashed his ribs against the steering wheel, _but he's okay."_

Sam looked at her. "They both died," he said clearly. Because they had. Dean had come back. Their father had not.

"Sam—"

But he drifted. It was so easy. "What about the car? Dean'll want to know. She's his baby."

"Impound lot."

Sam thought about it with close attention. "Isn't that sort of what a hospital is? For humans?"

At first the snort of amusement came down her nose. Then it became a chuckle deep in her throat. And then she laughed aloud, and it was a beautiful sound. "In for a penny, in for a pound," she murmured reflectively. Then, as if she'd made up her mind, "Hell, yes, Sam. That's exactly what it is."

"Am I okay?"

"Oh, I think you're better than okay. I don't know what you're like when you're not concussed, but in the meantime, this is pretty good."

He frowned over that. "Why?"

Her hand touched his, closed, briefly squeezed. "Because you sound like my father."

"Your dad?"

"Yeah."

Because he'd asked it about Dean so many times, it came easy. "He okay? Your dad?"

And she said, very clearly not thinking about him at all, only the answer, "Ah, honey, no. He died twenty years ago yesterday. A drunk driver t-boned him in the Impala."

Clarity, then. Nothing at all of fog. Nothing at all of confusion. He looked at her, saw the glint of tears. "I'm so sorry."

She smiled down at him. And he saw her for the first time as something other than a paramedic looking after him, and realized she was not young, that she might have been his mother.

"You heal," she said. "You heal up, hear? _And_ your brother, S.O.B. that he apparently is. You keep yourself in this world. There are things for you to do."

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><p><em>~ end ~<em>


End file.
